out of fashion

As a passionate, committed, enthusiastic and proselytising smoker I have often felt that I smoke like it's going out of fashion. Which of course it is.

J's mum M, who smoked 40 a day for the last 30 years, was diagnosed 3 months ago with lung cancer. Her brand, until she gave up (sometime around the first cancer tests), was Mayfair. Funny how the cheapest, tarriest, dirtiest fags always have the fanciest names. Funny how I keep saying to myself, *secondary* lung cancer.

The other day I learnt a new expression, "Cheyne Stoking". Funny how this sounds like "chain smoking". Cheyne Stoking, or Cheyne Stokes breathing, refers to a particular breathing pattern exhibited by some dying people. People dying of lung cancer, for example. Lung cancer probably caused by chain smoking. I was there when J's mum was cheyne stoking, hours before she died of lung cancer. It was horrific.

And still I feel that by giving up cigarettes I am depriving myself (see under "Stockholm Syndrome").